Voters See Value In Medical Use Of Marijuana

December 13, 1998

Your editorial about the medical marijuana initiatives passed by voters in five state last month attributes this to the funding of billionaire George Soros. The majority of Americans have long favored legal access to marijuana for medicinal purposes; that reality has more to do with the ballot box results than the involvement of Soros.

I suggest most Americans favor medical marijuana because most of us know someone who discovered that marijuana can counter the side effects of chemotherapy, reduce the sight risk of glaucoma, prevent seizures and spasms caused by neurological disorders and, as Queen Victoria discovered, even reduce menstrual cramping. There is widespread awareness of these attributes among medical professionals.

Contrary to your editorial, there is plenty of evidence that marijuana has medicinal value. Such was the conclusion of Frances L. Young, the Drug Enforcement Administration's chief administrative law judge after an exhaustive two-yeat hearing on this matter. It explains why 87 percent of the politicians in 34 state legislatures passed measures acknowledging marijuana's medical value. A similar measure failed in Congress, co-sponsored by Newt Gingrich.

Lyn Nofziger, President Reagan's spokesman, recently revealed in The Washington Post that he turned to marijuana when all else failed his daughter, who was suffering from lymph cancer. Nofziger concluded that "if doctors can prescribe morphine, it makes no sense to deny marijuana to sick and dying patients."

Seriously ill Americans should not have to commit crimes to relieve suffering.